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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27297439">The sword which stabs his peace</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Family, Gen, Mid s12 typical drama, Mild Horror, Sentient TARDIS, Suspense, TARDIS bottle episode, get it. get it. 'reflecting'? well listen if you read this you'll understand that I'm funny okay, only it's not a oneshot for reasons illuminated within, we're calling this an 'Emergency Halloween Oneshot'</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:21:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,894</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27297439</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a narrow escape from a planet of mirrors, the Doctor has some reflecting to do.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thirteenth Doctor &amp; Yasmin Khan &amp; Graham O'Brien &amp; Ryan Sinclair</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The sword which stabs his peace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">There was mud between his toes and a bruise darkening across his upper cheek. For once, Graham wasn’t entirely sure they’d won.</p><p class="p1">Ananxes V had been a beautiful, gleaming city-planet, before they’d dropped in. Buildings rising from the ground, mirrors catching in the sun. They’d left it in shattered pieces, slipping on glass, the earth rising from its fault lines like a poison. Regime deposed, and mud in his shoes. All in a day’s work. Today, it sat sour in his gut.</p><p class="p1">“I think the TARDIS has a hot spring tucked away somewhere,” the Doctor tempted, mud-caked boots traipsing towards the console without a care. She was just as rain-drenched as the rest of them, hair already curling damply towards her face, but if it bothered her, she didn’t let it show. Her eyebrows climbed good-naturedly as she continued to dangle what was, in fact, a rather poor consolation prize before them. Like distracting a baby with a rattle, Graham thought, a bit uncharitably. <em>Look over here, see, and don’t look behind you</em>. “And a spa. Waterslides, probably. Check next to the boating lakes, that’s usually where they like to be. Or is it under the karaoke buses? Well, you’ll find them.”</p><p class="p1">Graham watched Ryan’s face fall dimly, where he was stationed near the stairs. Yaz was already half-way up them, hands wringing out her water-logged braid, displeasure written in the corners of her mouth.</p><p class="p1">“Okay,” he said, hesitantly. There was a tear in the knee of his trousers, mud caked on his hands, from where he’d fallen. A whole planet made of slipping hazard, and he hadn’t said a word, but Graham knew none of it had been easy. “You’re not coming? Only you’re a bit—” He gestured vaguely, lips pressing together. “Y’know. Muddy. Like the rest of us.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh,” and her nose wrinkled, “I’ll sort it in a mo’. Be along shortly. I should get us off this planet, before the ground disappears.”</p><p class="p1">Ryan accepted her usual excuses stoically, and trailed after Yaz up the stairs. Graham caught the edge of their murmured conversation as he drifted closer, watched her turn absently towards the console.</p><p class="p1">“Everything alright, Graham?” she wondered mildly. “I could find a salve, for your face, if you like. I mean the bruise on your face, not your—well, you know what I mean.”</p><p class="p1">He didn’t have to see her to know her face would be scrunched up like no tomorrow.</p><p class="p1">“Ta, thank you very much,” he said, feigning offense. “Not all of us was born blessed with great looks, but I’ve done alright for myself, haven’t I.”</p><p class="p1">She turned, a tad reluctantly, but there was a hint of fondness crawling across her face.</p><p class="p1">“I’m serious about the bruise,” she said. “Are you sure?”</p><p class="p1">“I’ll be fine,” he said, thought it was tender to the touch. He shuddered to think what his face was going to look like tomorrow, all swollen up and mottled. “Nothing broken.”</p><p class="p1">“Good.” Her shoulders straightened. There was tension lurking in her jaw. She wanted him desperately to leave, he sensed. She always wanted them to leave, lately. It was why he made an extra effort to hang around, sometimes, instead. “Now, stop dripping mud in my TARDIS and go get washed up.”</p><p class="p1">“You’re dripping a fair bit of mud yourself,” he pointed out, gesturing to her boots, the sleeves of her coat. The sleeves of her coat—</p><p class="p1">“Oi,” she protested. “It’s my ship. I’m <em>allowed</em> to drip.”</p><p class="p1">It was funny, he thought to himself for the briefest of moments. The soil on the planet had been so dark it was nearly purple. The Doctor’s sleeve was soaked in orange.</p><p class="p1">“Doc,” he said, before the thought could be properly vetted. “My god, but your blood’s an awfully funny colour.”</p><p class="p1">For a moment, she only blinked at him incredulously. Her mouth opened, as if to voice another protest—and her eyes chanced upon the sleeve he was looking at.</p><p class="p1">“Oh,” she said faintly, raising the arm in question to better scrutinize her palm, where a shard of shattered mirror had splintered through, left a fault line seeping rust. “Look at that.”</p><p class="p1">Graham glanced behind her at the console, the TARDIS doors, smeared faintly with darkened orange, and wondered sickly how she’d failed to notice.</p><p class="p1">“It’s only shallow,” she reassured quickly, unalarmed. She tucked the hand away back into its offending sleeve. “Nothing to worry about.”</p><p class="p1">“Should probably get it stitched up though,” he ventured. “Shouldn’t you?”</p><p class="p1">“Have to fish the glass out first.” Her nose wrinkled again at the thought. “But there’s an app for that.</p><p class="p1">“I could help,” he offered, swallowing nauseously. “Looks nasty, Doc.”</p><p class="p1">“Nah.” She waved him off with her other hand, half-turning back to the console. “I’ll sort it. You best clean yourself up.”</p><p class="p1">She always wanted them to leave, lately. Graham swallowed again, heart heavy. He thought of the soil erupting through the planet’s cracks, the way the ground had fractured and shattered. He thought of the city they’d left behind in pieces to be consumed, and how, today, it had been good enough.</p><p class="p1">Sometimes, all you could do was leave before you were swallowed, too.</p><p class="p1">“Alright, sure,” he allowed, backing away. A hot shower did sound proper lovely, now the thought was nestled in the back of his head. Something scalding to clear away the day. “But you take care of yourself now, Doc.” He still had to try. “Maybe we can all sit around some sandwiches, later.”</p><p class="p1">She didn’t even look up from the console. “Oh, yeah,” she lied, cheerfully. “Sounds great.”</p><p class="p1">The rest of the TARDIS yawned before him, as he climbed the steps. He never knew which way to go—he’d learned the hard way that the best way to go about it was just not to think much about where you were going, and think more about where you <em>wanted</em> to be going, and let the TARDIS take care of the rest.</p><p class="p1">Behind him, the lights dimmed to a more somber blue. He left the Doctor to her gloom.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ryan could have sworn the waterslides were right next to the fishing pond, not the boating lakes or the karaoke buses, like the Doctor had said. The TARDIS always led him to them through the pool in the library, across the abandoned mini-golf, wound him through a shortcut round the arboretum, where they were wedged in across from an exact replica of the British Museum’s dinosaur wing. Well. He couldn’t say for sure. Maybe it <em>was</em> the actual wing. Ryan didn’t understand how the TARDIS worked, and at this point, he was far too afraid to ask. Better to just let it guide his feet where they needed to go, and not bother with too many questions. It wasn’t like the Doctor would answer them, anyway.</p><p class="p1">What he really wanted, he thought, head pounding sourly, knees stinging, was a hot shower and then a few rounds of flinging himself mindlessly down a plastic tube until the day melted away. The TARDIS waterslides were the <em>best</em>. He never ever scraped himself on the sides, and there was no one else to worry about running into at the bottom, except for Yaz, sometimes. She’d scoffed at the waterslides in favour of the spa, on account of she was <em>boring</em>, and so it would be only him, and no one to cramp his style.</p><p class="p1">If he could only find the damn things.</p><p class="p1">He sighed, and placed his mud-cracked hands on his hips. “Are you havin’ a go?” he wondered vaguely at the ceiling. The Doctor talked to the TARDIS like it was alive, sometimes. He’d picked up the habit, despite himself. “I’m sorry about the mud, y’know, but I’m trying to get it off, so if you couldjust…y’know. Point me in the right direction?” He swallowed, resisting the urge to tap his foot impatiently. “I’ll just be on my way…or whatever.”</p><p class="p1">He waited for the instinct to drop into the back of his head. That was how the TARDIS went about it, after all. Nudged you in the right direction. Took care of your feet for you, so you nearly always ended up where you wanted to be—or at least, where you needed to be. Well. Where the TARDIS <em>thought</em> you needed to be.</p><p class="p1">“Hello?” he tried again, fruitlessly. God, and he’d been wandering about for ages like some idiot. Maybe the TARDIS was too busy to take him to the waterslides. Or maybe, he thought morosely, it had picked up on the Doctor’s mood and decided not to help him anymore.</p><p class="p1">He still wasn’t quite sure if it was something they’d done. Or worse, something <em>he’d</em> done, though he wouldn’t have put it past himself. Either way, the Doctor didn’t like to spend time with them, anymore. Time was—and he could remember a time, in fact, a few weeks ago, when they’d all gotten covered in purple slime on Manticooticaniverpolous, on account of the giant purple slugs that lived there—the Doctor would have herded them all together. She would have made sure they were alright, and then she would have made it fun, too.</p><p class="p1">These days, at least when they were all in the TARDIS together, she would barely look any of them in the eye. It was <em>weird</em>. And mostly, it was lonely.</p><p class="p1">“Oh my days,” he despaired quietly, knees still stinging. And on top of everything, he was well and truly lost now. The waterslides were nowhere to be seen, and neither was anything else, except for the corridor stretching out before him. No doors in sight. Nothing <em>remotely</em> recognizable. He reached for his phone, resigning himself to the embarrassing task of calling the Doctor to come and rescue him from the depths of her own ship.</p><p class="p1">Only—</p><p class="p1">“Ryan?”</p><p class="p1">He caught her reflection in the faint, golden gleam off the walls before her shadow signalled her approach.</p><p class="p1">“How’d you know I got lost?” he wondered, as the Doctor rounded the corner, clean and dry and the most welcome sight he’d seen so far, today.</p><p class="p1">“I had a hunch,” she said, nose wrinkling with chagrin. “It’s alright, the TARDIS is in a mood. Corridors keep switching round, it’s nothing to do with you, the architectural configuration circuits have overloaded. Bet it was the mud. Thought I’d better come fetch you all.”</p><p class="p1">“Is it, uh. Is it safe?” He glanced nervously up at the ceiling.</p><p class="p1">She was still smiling warmly. “Perfectly safe. Just have to get to the console so I can fix it.” She extended a hand towards him. It was utterly clean. At least someone had found the showers, he thought dryly. “Let’s get a shift on,” she urged. “No time to waste.”</p><p class="p1">“I thought it was safe,” he said, taking her hand. She tugged him on, walking fast. Hand caught tightly in her grip, he nearly stumbled on the grate, but her pace didn’t relent.</p><p class="p1">“Well,” she said, head tilting in acknowledgement. “It is safe. Perfectly safe. It is a bit…” She tested the word on her lips. “Concerning. Concerning? What word do I mean? <em>Worrying</em>. It’s perfectly safe but it is a bit worrying.” She glanced towards him, teeth glinting white.</p><p class="p1">“So,” she said. There was something, Ryan thought, a little bit different about her. But he couldn’t put his finger on it. She smiled again. “Best keep up.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>happy halloween! </p><p>please enjoy what was intended to be an Emergency Halloween Oneshot, before I realized that I wasn't gonna finish it as a one shot in time but that I still Desperately wanted to post it on halloween fghkfdkfgd</p><p>there's more on the way soon bc she's oneshot sized, I promise, she's just split into a chapter or two. how many chapters, em, you ask. GREAT QUESTION. i don't know i'm so busy this week have mercy on me i just wanted to write something tardis-y and full of spook.</p><p>hope u all have a wonderfully spoopy halloween and please let me know what you thought!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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